Rajasthan Royals thrash Deccan Chargers by eight wickets: IPL INDIA

A solid opening stand of 109 runs between Graeme Smith and Yusuf Pathan guided the Rajasthan Royals to an easy eight wickets victory over the Deccan Challengers in the 30th Twenty20 match of the Indian Premier League on Friday at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium, Jaipur.

Chasing 141 runs, the Rajasthan Royals achieved the target from just 16 overs for the loss of only two wickets.

Pathan smashed 68 off just 37 balls with nine fours and two sixes while Smith made an steady 40 off 43 balls with four fours. Later, Yusuf Pathan was declared the man-of-the-match.

Mohammad Kaif (17) and Shane Watson (5) remained not out.

RP Singh and Pragyan Ojha took one wicket each.

Earlier, Rajasthan Royals captain Shane Warne won the toss and put the Deccan Chargers into batting and then restricted them to 140 runs for eight wickets in the allotted 20 overs.

Deccan Chargers’ stand-in captain Adam Gilchrist smashed a quick fifty and along with Herschelle Gibbs provided a solid opening stand of 61 runs off 48 balls.

However, when Gibbs and later Scott Styris departed at 88 they were losing run-rate and the collapse began.

Gilchrist made 61 off 49 balls with nine fours and one six while other main scorers were Venugopal Rao (23), Gibbs (19) and Styris (13).

Shane Warne was the most successful bowler with two for 20 while Siddharth Trivedi, Shane Watson, Yusuf Pathan and Munaf Patel took one wicket each.

Adam Gilchrist again captained the Deccan Chargers in place of Venkat Sai Laxman, who is still unfit due to hand injury.

Deccan left out Arjun Yadav and brought in Ravi Teja while Rajasthan also made one change as Swapnil Asnodkar was replaced by Niraj Patel.

Deccan Chargers: Adam Gilchrist (captain and wk), Herschelle Gibbs, Scott Styris, Rohit Sharma, Shahid Afridi, Venugopal Rao, Sanjay Bangar, Ravi Teja, RP Singh, P Vijaykumar, Pragyan Ojha.

Rajasthan Royals: Graeme Smith, Niraj Patel, Yusuf Pathan, Shane Watson, Mohammad Kaif, Ravindra Jadeja, Mahesh Rawat (wk), Shane Warne (captain), Sohail Tanvir, Siddharth Trivedi, Munaf Patel.